141. gambit

I really shouldn’t give these people any more attention than they’re already getting, but I have an overwhelming urge to smack that smug little beatific smile off of Kalley Yanta’s face (the friendly face of fascism—every regime has one), and this question has been coming up a lot lately: “Is it true that Minnesota’s marriage law has no rational basis and only exists because of moral animosity toward gays and lesbians?”

The answer is yes.

Thus far, no sufficiently convincing argument has been brought forward by conservatives to prove that homosexuality is unnatural or harmful to society. The studies that they cite are decades old, and carried out by biased individuals who often have a religious agenda to support. Just recently, Robert Spitzer, one of the original proponents of clinical study into reparative therapy, recanted his 2001 paper that lent so much credibility afforded to the ex-gay movement. He has apologized for the harm his work has done to the GLBT community, though it will be interesting to see what move he makes next.

In the video, Yanta claims that Federal Judge Vaughn Walker’s verdict in the Proposition 8 trial was unprecedented, and that “no other federal judge has ever reached such a radical conclusion” (and unsurprisingly casts doubt on his verdict since he’s a gay man himself and obviously can’t reach a fair decision). Which is probably what they were saying about the 1967 Supreme Court ruling on Loving versus Virginia, which effectively overturned the nation’s anti-miscegenation laws and finally opened the door for inter-racial marriage, a concept which was as irrational to legislate against as same-sex marriage is today. To prohibit two human beings from being together based on something as arbitrary as the color of their skin or their sex when doing so doesn’t harm anyone isn’t rational.

Research is rather showing that homosexuality is likely congenital, like left-handedness. While probably not genetic—it’s dubious that scientists will ever find that elusive “gay gene”—those of us who are gay likely acquire our orientation the same way that heterosexuals inherit theirs. But that’s not where conservatives start. In order to continue their campaign of hatred and bigotry they have to begin with the premise that homosexuality is a choice, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. The Mormon Church issued a statement recently that it will continue to use the findings in Robert Spitzer’s 2001 study, though Spitzer himself has recanted it. Though there’s doubtless confirmation bias happening on each side, it falls to the anti-gay crowd to produce any credible, rational evidence that homosexuality is errant, detrimental or morally wrong.

Faith is by very definition irrational. Merriam-Webster defines faith as:

2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust

3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs.

 

The Bible itself defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith does not demand proof and rather demands absolute acceptance on little to no evidence. The current traditional reading of the Bible claims that homosexuality is an abomination to God, even though there are hundreds of other practices that are also banned (e.g., tattoos, eating shellfish, blending cloth, haircuts, etc), and despite the fact that there is no scientific evidence that homosexuality is detrimental.

So we’re currently at an impasse between Christians who insist that homosexuality is an abomination based on what their Bible says and the scientific community that has found nothing wrong with it. Yanta claims that banning same-sex marriage “is not only rational, but is in the common good.” I’ll let “rational” slip by for now, but by “common good” she evidently means the “Christian good.” No one else benefits from these discriminatory laws except for religious conservatives who are seeking to protect the status quo and enshrine their irrational, dogmatic beliefs.

It ignores the fact that, according to the Bible itself, the definition of marriage has included…

According to the Christian Bible, monogamous, heterosexual marriage was rare in the patriarchal ancient Middle East, and it’s surprisingly silent about such modes as polygamy. You’d think that if God had intended for “One Man One Woman” that he would’ve been a little more more explicit about that, so we have to assume that since men like Abraham, Isaac, David and Solomon all had multiple wives, and that since it was acceptable for women to be forced to marry their rapists that there’s more than one way to be married.

Wait—but that was a different time! That was an acceptable cultural practice back then, but we have different standards now!

Bullshit. Either the Bible is true for all peoples in all times, or it’s just another book that we can either disregard like all the others or glean what wisdom we can from it and chuck the rest. One can’t keep moving the goalposts and expect to maintain credibility.

But as to the claim that there is no animosity towards gays and lesbians in the fight to define marriage as being between one man and one woman, it’s preposterous. Lurking beneath those polished, fresh-faced veneers are fearful, intolerant bigots who think that gay people are icky. They attempt to justify their prejudice by validating it a matter of faith (which requires no proof or evidence), which is a direct violation of the Separation of Church and State. While they decry government interference in their religious practice, they think nothing of forcing their beliefs on everyone else and enshrining them into law, then cry discrimination and persecution when the secular community objects. As a friend of mine wrote me in an email the other day, “I believe in moral absolutes so I want Christians to be in control.” There it is.

The GLBT community may not have an absolute right to same-sex marriage, but neither are there grounds to ban it either in context of a civil government.

126. bandy

bandy, verb: 1. To pass from one to another or back and forth; give and take. 2. To throw or strike to and fro or from side to side, as a ball in tennis. 3. To circulate freely.

Some days I stare forever at a blank screen and wonder what to write about.

Some days social media just hands it to me in a neat little package with a bow.

I was tipped off to the fact that this weekend (on Friday around noon, to be precise), John Piper, the homophobic pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in downtown Minneapolis, went on the following homophobic rant:

I’m not really sure what set him off this time, aside from Maryland’s upcoming vote to approve same-sex marriage, but I love the fact that he started his rant with a self-fulfilling prophesy. And that all this translates to: “The sky is falling!”

To briefly address each of these tweets one-by-one, as I just said, by quoting 1 Corinthians 4:12, he’s giving himself license to throw up his hands later and say, “We told them they were going to hate us!” He’s refusing to take responsibility for the wrong-headed, offensive nature of his theology that prevents him from accepting anyone who doesn’t live up to his notion of what a decent human being is supposed to be.

As to his second tweet (which rings mildly treasonous), as the Fifth Doctor said of the Daleks, “However you respond them is seen as an act of provocation.” Conservative fundamentalism is and has been living in a wartime mindset for quite some time, convinced as they are that we are living in the End Times and that the return of Jesus is nigh. They are also convinced that the person of Satan is actively working in the world to pervert it and incite the human race into rebellion (deliberate or inadvertent) against god. This tweet won’t make make sense unless you understand that very important point.

To the third—well, I’ll get to that in a minute.

To the last one, his definition of marriage is so narrow and based on something that is itself a fiction that to tie it into something as insoluble as “the glory of god” would be laughable if it wasn’t tragic. If you aren’t familiar with that phrase, one of the central themes of Piper’s teaching is the primacy of the Glory of God, a concept that is found throughout the bible, but may be more familiar to Catholic and Anglican readers from the answer to the first question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

What is the chief end of man?
Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Now, I may not be a deity, but if I handed you a list of ways I felt were acceptable for you to show your love for me, you’d be quite right to call me a narcissist. After all, that’s in the very DSM-IV criterion for narcissism.

I don’t have to tell you that I think Piper terribly wrong, or that he’s dangerous and a societal menace. But through his Pie In The Sky theology, he is directing everyone who listens to him (and there are a lot of them who literally hang on his every word) to be precisely the opposite of the qualities that the figurehead of his religion exemplified in the Gospels (if you leave out the crazy bits like cursing fig trees)—namely, showing love, acceptance, charity and generosity towards your fellow human beings.

And these are the people of my state who will be going out in November in droves to vote in the affirmative for the constitutional amendment defining marriage as only being between a man and a woman.

Tell me again that religion is harmless.

Now, to that pesky third tweet. The insanity of these reformed theology fundamentalists is how they pick and choose which parts of their bible they will apply to the rest of the world—as if the rest of the world was somehow supposed to recognize the authority of a 2,000 year-old book authored by a xenophobic Bronze Age tribe obsessed with blood and sexual purity. For instance, since they’re so hot for quoting Leviticus when they’re bashing gays:

“You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.”
— Leviticus 19:26-28 (English Standard Version)

How many Christians do you know who openly sport tattoos, trim their facial hair, read horoscopes and eat rare steaks?

“But that’s the Old Testament” the contemporary Christian whines. “Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets. We don’t have to follow those old laws anymore.”

Then it stands to reason that if he fulfilled the ones above, then he also fulfilled all the rest, including Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13; and if those have been nullified, then the whole rest of the case for homosexuality being a “sin” falls apart. And what is John Piper and that third tweet of his left with at that point other than prejudice and bigotry? For that matter, what is the American Family Association, Peter LaBarbera, James Dobson, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and the denizens of fear and ignorance left with?

The sad truth is that they, along with the rest of America that refuses to progress, will be dragged kicking and screaming into obsolescence, watching in a prison of self-imposed horror like Elizabeth Báthory as their influence withers and wanes before their little despotic eyes.

If gays are allowed to marry, will that endanger heterosexual marriages? Nope. As it’s been observed, the only people threatening heterosexual marriage are heterosexuals.

If teens are taught about safe sex or *gasp* the existence of homosexuals in school, will they turn gay? Nope, although apparently the American Life League would seem to disagree slightly.

115. doyenne

My plan for February is to write a post each day, the topic taken from/inspired by Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day. I’m trying to venture outside of the usual subjects I write about (i.e., religion), and this seems like a good exercise to get new ideas going.

Doyenne. noun, a woman who is the senior member, as in age or rank, of a group, class, profession, etc.

It’s always interesting to see which Facebook posts of mine go relatively unnoticed, and which ones cause an uproar. The other day I posted this YouTube video from Second City:

In case you hadn’t heard, last month Rick Santorum gave an interview with Piers Morgan where he attempted to “clarify” his position on abortion (especially in the case of rape and incest) in which he said the following:

As horrible as the way that that son or daughter was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. . . And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time I think [is] the right approach [;] to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. . . I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

In short: Rape sucks. Give her a hug and tell her to buck up and push. Then ask what she’s planning to name the baby. Does it have its father’s eyes/nose/chin?

The gist of the flurry of comments that followed was that while the sentiment may sound harsh, it’s a complex issue, but abortion is never right, and children are a gift from god. If there’s one topic Evangelicals will never fail to speak up about, it’s abortion.

Even a year ago my own position on this was evolving. Up until last year, or maybe a bit before, I’ve always been solidly pro-life. Life was a gift from god and humans have no right to make those kinds of decisions concerning it. This is ironic, considering how many Christians are pro-death penalty and how many people their god has commanded other people to kill in horrific ways over the centuries.

It’s one of the many areas of ethics that has undergone significant revision since my coming out as an atheist. And right now, it’s this: while life is a rare thing in the universe, we seem to be the only species on earth that is able to manage its own sexual reproduction. Unlike animals, we can choose how, when and if to reproduce. We are under no divine mandate to bring each and every fertilized ovum to full-term.

Now let me stop a moment and point out that I currently have a four-year old roommate (the son of my two married, adult roommates). My younger sister has a one-and-a-half year-old son. Most of my friends have multiple kids. Hell, I have friends who have kids going into kindergarten and first grade. This isn’t a neutral, academic issue for me. My views have palpable, real-life ramifications.

Basically, I don’t believe human life has any purpose other than that which we as humans define it with. A shorthand way of saying this might be: Humans are made, not born.

What I think is happening here is that we’ve confused ‘potential’ for life with the ‘right’ to life. By the Christian definition, every miscarriage should be prosecuted as manslaughter, but functionally, a fetus is neither innocent or guilty. At the moment of conception it’s a conglomeration of mutating cells, and by the time that a pregnancy is detectable, it’s still largely animal—pre-human, void of consciousness. We anthropomorphise that grouping of cells and project intentions and feelings on to it that likely aren’t there. It’s all Instinct.

This may sound like rationalization for abortion, and perhaps it is. But from a logical standpoint, the simplest solution is to terminate a “rape/incest pregnancy” before the situation becomes more complicated than it already is. By any definition, the fetus is not yet “human.” There is no god to bestow automatic personhood, and no one’s rights are being violated. The zygote does not have opinions, and the fact is that we can’t ask it if it would like to live or not. We are under no divine obligation to protect it, especially in cases where the pregnancy was induced by force rather than by the woman’s choice.

The only person whose rights are being violated is the woman who is being forced to carry the fetus (a parasite by any definition)  that she never asked for to full term. And, to be sure, this is a huge decision for the woman. Santorum claims that a rape victim just needs the support and care of her community. But no one can take on the radical physiological changes that take place during pregnancy—not to speak of the wild hormonal changes—or the agonies of labor and childbirth for her. She must face these alone. To be realistic, women have faced this reality since the beginning of time, when there was no rape. Males “took” women without impunity, and getting pregnant was just a hazard of being female.

And we know better now.

However sympathetically they couch it, Santorum and those who share his views on this issue fundamentally view women in this barbaric way. Ironically, it’s godless atheists and humanists who have women’s best interests in mind—not theists. The only person who should have a say over what happens to a woman’s body is the woman herself.

It’s funny how different this issue looks outside of the Christian bubble. It’s much more nuanced and shaded out here.

And that’s the point. We can’t just decide these issues for each other. Each case is unequivocally unique. We have to decide together.

66. surprise

This morning on Twitter I saw a story from the Advocate about a church sign in North Carolina that was smashed and vandalized because of its anti-gay message:

GOD LOVES GAYS
BUT HE HATES A
PERVERTED LIFE
STYLE (sic) ROM.1-26-27
TURN OR BURN

The woman from the church, Anna Benson, who put up the sign in the first place, seems genuinely surprised that anyone would have found that message offensive. “I love the gays,” she said. “I love everybody.” The pastor of the church supports the message too, stating that it’s based on “biblical truth.”

Yesterday I came across an interview with Michelle Bachmann responding to questions from David Gregory on Meet the Press about her stated positions on homosexuality and her support for a same-sex marriage, amongst other things (the entire interview was about twenty-five minutes altogether).

At one point in the conversation, the following exchange took place:

“That is the view that President Bachmann would have of gay Americans?” Gregory asks (after playing an excerpt of her speech at the 2004 National Education Conference).

Bachmann responds, “I am running for the presidency of the United States. I am not running to be anyone’s judge.”

“But you have judged them,” Gregory continues.

She looks a little taken aback. “I don’t judge them,” she replies, and then later adds, “My view on marriage is that I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that’s what I stand for; but I ascribe honor and dignity to every person, no matter what their background.”

There’s a tragic, profound disconnect here between word and action. Both Bachmann and Benson are either unable or unwilling to see the implications of their positions. They see homosexuality and the person as two different entities: a natural playing-out of the “love the sinner, hate the sin” mentality that I grew up with. That’s an appropriate approach to take with, say, a five-year-old hogging the bricks in the playroom or Wynona Ryder shoplifting; but a propensity towards selfishness or a willful breaking of the law is a world away from a sexual orientation. Psychology and science are finally affirming what so many of us have known our whole lives: that, as Lady Gaga sings, we were born this way. Or if we weren’t that our sexuality was shaped in the same way that a heterosexual person’s is.

Yet this is precisely what my parents and most everyone else in the Evangelical camp continue to assert: that homosexuality is a choice, blindly in the face of mounting evidence from all sides, and that it is something that can be “cured” (or “prayed away”). And for them it absolutely has to be, or else their theological house of cards falls to pieces. Because if the Church is wrong on this issue, what else are they wrong about?

What this view allows the conservative Christian Right to do is dehumanize the GLBT community. Without a face there’s no human collateral. Rather, it’s an impersonal “agenda” that’s threatening your family, your children, your home and your way of life. An agenda can’t be hurt. It can be legislated and discriminated against without impunity. It can be vilified and demonized.

I wonder if Michelle Bachmann or Anna Benson could continue to believe what they do if they sat in a hospital room with a couple being separated because the law didn’t recognize either partner as next of kin. Or an afternoon with Bradford Wells and Anthony Makk, who is being deported back to Australia, even though they have been together nineteen years and were legally married in Massachusetts seven years ago (DOMA prohibits the federal government from recognizing their status under the law as a state-approved married couple)–and Makk is Wells’ primary care-giver (Wells has AIDS). Were they a married couple, Makk could not be deported. Heterosexual couples do not face this scenario.

With the mobilizing machine of the Tea Party, there’s a strong likelihood that in the next presidential election a Republican could sit in the Oval Office (most likely Rick Perry, if my reading of the GOP is accurate), wielding influence and power and armed with a deliberate religious and extreme right-wing ideology to craft public policy that could have very real implications for the GLBT community in particular. It’s this dual-mindedness that allows their indifference and bigotry to thrive in conservative corners of politics and mainstream America, fueled by the voices of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and the denizens of Fox News and other conservative pundits.

It wouldn’t bother me so much either if it were just the pundits, the Glenn Becks, or the Rush Limabughs doing the ranting. They have a constitutionally guaranteed right to do so. However, We the People of the United States–e pluribus unum–are not sending elected officials to state and federal office to promote their personal or religious ideology. We elect and appoint judges who are studied in law and we expect them to apply that law fairly and without prejudice or bias. (That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway.) Similarly, we elect public officials in our representative democracy to uphold the Constitution and to be the voice of their constituents. How often do judges have to make rulings that conflict with their personal beliefs? They will often say so in their dissenting opinions, but must abide by stare decisis, whether or not they agree.

Perhaps I’m being idealistic here, but I rather think politicians should be held to the same standard of upholding constitutional law rather than their religious or personal moral beliefs. They are elected to represent the People as fairly as possible, not “their” segment of the population. Will Michelle Bachmann stand up for gay Americans? Likely not.

The scales of public opinion are shifting ever-so-gradually towards a positive attitude of same-sex and other “non-traditional” relationships. But if the religious Right has their way, all of that could be undone with a few well-worded speeches and the stroke of a pen.

032. consternation (or, wtf in the garden of eden)

Sorry it’s been so long in between posts (not that anybody really missed me, I’m sure). Work is changing and bringing more responsibility with it. I’m doing more writing, though at the moment more waiting to see if my submissions were accepted.

With the health care bill passing it feels like I’ve been playing catch-up on what’s been happening nationally. What disturbed me most was that Pilosi snuck and ramrodded her bill through Congress, giving Americans a mere seventy-two hours to respond, vote, or object to what was in the 1,999 page document. Now we wait to see what happens in the Senate and hope to God that true conservatives there stand up to the pressure from the left, and from Obama to give him a “positive outcome.”

One other thing that disheartened me last week was the repealing of same-sex marriage in Maine. It’s not so much that I’m a huge proponent of it (since I’m nowhere near being married and it isn’t an issue for me). It was the victory sound bytes from the opposition which bordered on vainglorious gloating from the conservative right that deeply bothered me (the following quotes are from an ABC news article):

• “We’ve struggled, we’ve worked against tremendous odds, as we’ve all known. We prevailed because the people of Maine, the silent majority, the folks back home spoke with their vote tonight.” – Marc Mutty, campaign manager for Stand for Marriage Maine which opposed gay marriages.
• “I believe that marriage is for a man and a woman… and I don’t believe that [gay marriage] should be taught in school, period.” – Mary Lou Narbus, a 51-year-old mother of three from Rockwood, Maine.
• “I don’t feel anybody has the right to redefine marriage. I would have been heartbroken for our country if it did not pass… We had a prayer night last night for it to go the way it should.” – Ellen Sanford McDaniel, 35, of Fairfield, Maine.

In response, there are a few points I’d like to make.

1. These are supposedly “my people” saying these things, conservatives and Christians, and I’m not sure what angers me more—that these blatant misconceptions about same-sex marriage are still being circulated and promoted, or that ignorance and fear got the upper hand once again. Yes, there are gay activists out there who want to promote homosexuality in schools, and yes, they are a vociferous minority and they do have an agenda they want to force down people’s throats and make them accept it. I never thought I’d ever say this, but as Sean Hannity once said, “If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly enjoys his life. If a liberal is homosexual, he loudly demands legislated respect.”The intent of the majority of homosexuals is not to erode the American family unit or destroy family values. It’s to make up for years of imposed silence and shame from the status quo. It’s straight couples who have managed to erode family values by jumping from marriage to marriage, or bed to bed, leaving broken partners and children in their wake, all without the help of the gays (or the gay bandidos). There are homosexuals who have lived together, faithfully, for decades, who practice fidelity and monogamy more authentically than many heterosexual couples.(On a side note, I don’t think homosexuality needs to be “taught” in schools any more than heterosexuality should be promoted. It’s not the job of the schools to socialise students—but that’s another discussion.)
2. It upsets me that anyone would pray for things to go the way they want them to, and even more that they expect God to sanction their position. Whatever happened to “thy will be done”? And not that Christians shouldn’t get involved in politics, but awful things happen when religion is used as a sword. That’s why we left England in the first place.
3. Their reaction belies a fundamental misunderstanding of human sexuality, an adherence to rigid cultural and societal norms, and aversion to anything that threatens their comfortable notions of what American life is supposed to be. It’s the common impression that all gay men are lisping, promiscuous, flamboyant queens. In fact, many “gay” couples don’t even practice “gay” sex, and some are even celibate. Terms like “gay sex” or “gay love” imply that it’s different from any other kind of love or sexual activity—even aberrant (not that any and all activity that goes on between homosexual males is healthy—things like fisting, BDSM and fetishism can be dangerous and harmful to the body).
4. It also belies a fundamental misconception of sexuality in scripture. According to traditional arguments, the primary function of sex is procreation, and on those grounds many infertile couples shouldn’t be married either. And if you were to ask, I suspect that many Christians wouldn’t even be able to tell you why they believe homosexuality is wrong—only that “the Bible says so.” Mny blindly accept and parrot the views of their leaders without studying the issue for themselves, and yet these are the ones speaking with their votes.
5. Instead of “working against” same-sex marriage, why don’t Christians try to find out what it is that homosexuals really want? Yes, this would involve actually getting to know a few, and perhaps that’s what this is about. It’s easy to work to block someone’s rights when they’re a statistic or a scary figure on television, and you are a happily married, secluded family that enjoys society’s approval and privilege; but that often changes when it becomes about people.It’s about simple things, like enjoying the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples, without dirty looks or the danger of—at the very least—being savagely beaten; being able to publicly marry without fundamentalists protesting or children holding signs declaring eternal damnation for gays; and legal rights, such as hospital visitation and tax credits. It’s about the symbolic declaration of commitment that separates “living together” from “marriage.”

It’s not about upturning the apple cart. We just want fair treatment.